THE MERRY PRANKS OF ROBIN GOOD-FELLOW.
From Oberon, in fairy land,
The king of ghosts and shadowes there,
Mad Robin, I, at his command,
Am sent to viewe the night-sports here.
What revell rout
Is kept about
In every corner where I go,
I will o’ersee
And merrie be,
And make good sport with ho, ho, ho!
More swift than lightning can I flye
About the aery welkin soone,
And in a minute’s space descrye
Each thing that’s done belowe the moone.
There’s not a hag
Or ghost shall wag,
Or cry 'ware goblins! where I go,
But Robin, I,
Their feates will spy,
And send them home with ho, ho, ho!
Whene’er such wanderers I meete,
As from their night-sports they trudge home,
With counterfeiting voice I greete,
And call them on with me to roame.
Thro’ woods, thro’ lakes,
Thro’ bogs, thro’ brakes;
Or else, unseene, with them I go,
All in the nicke,
To play some tricke,
And frolick it with ho, ho, ho!
Sometimes I meete them like a man;
Sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound,
And to a horse I turn me can,
To trip and trot about them round,
But, if to ride,
My backe they stride,
More swift than wind away I goe,
O’er hedge and lands,
Thro’ pools and ponds,
I whirry, laughing ho, ho, ho!
When lads and lasses merry be,
With possets, and with junkets fine;
Unseene of all the company,
I eat their cakes and sip their wine;
And to make sport
I fume and snort,
And out the candles I do blow:
The maids I kiss,
They shrieke, Who’s this?
I answer nought but ho, ho, ho!
Yet now and then, the maids to please,
At midnight I card up their wooll;
And while they sleepe and take their ease,
With wheel, to threads their flax I pull.
I grind at mill,
Their malt up still;
I dress their hemp, I spin their tow.
If any wake,
And would me take,
I wend me laughing ho, ho, ho!
When house or hearth doth sluttish lye,
I pinch the maidens black and blue,
The bedd-clothes from the bedd pull I,
And in their ear I bawl too-whoo!
’Twixt sleepe and wake
I do them take,
And on the clay-cold floor them throw,
If out they cry,
Then forth I fly,
And loudly laugh out ho, ho, ho!
When any need to borrow ought,
We lend them what they do require,
And for the use demand we nought,
Our owne is all we do desire.
If to repay,
They do delay,
Abroad amongst them then I go,
And night by night,
I them affright,
With pinchings, dreams, and ho, ho, ho!
When lazie queans have nought to do,
But study how to cog and lye,
To make debate and mischief too,
’Twixt one another secretly
I marke their gloze,
And it disclose,
To them whom they have wronged so.
When I have done,
I get me gone
And leave them scolding, ho, ho, ho!
When men do traps and engines set
In loope holes, where the vermine creepe,
Who from their foldes and houses get
Their duckes and geese, and lambes and sheepe;
I spy the gin,
And enter in,
And seeme a vermin taken so;
But when they there
Approach me neare,
I leap out laughing ho, ho, ho!
By wells and rills, in meadowes green,
We nightly dance our hey-day guise;
And to our fairye kinge and queene
We chaunt our moon-lighte minstrelsies.
When larkes gin singe,
Away we flinge;
And babes new-born steale as we go,
And shoes in bed
We leave instead,
And wend us laughing ho, ho, ho!
From hag-bred Merlin’s time have I
Thus nightly revell’d to and fro:
And for my prankes, men call me by
The name of Robin Good-Fellow.
Friends, ghosts, and sprites
Who haunt the nightes,
The hags and goblins do me know,
And beldames old
My feates have told,
So vale, vale, ho, ho, ho!
Anonymous—attributed to Ben Jonson, about 1600.